Shipments coming to an end, what’s next?

It’s been a frantic few weeks for the whole Securifi team, as we’ve now shipped about 98% of all the pledges. What’s left is Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, as well as a handful of ANZ units and some special requests or multiple-unit orders that we deemed a bit too complex to ship directly from the factory. We expect all of these to have shipped over the next two weeks. There’s of course that snafu with some of the European countries as well where we’ll be getting a few units back and re-ship them via EMS and once again, we can’t apologise enough about this. This past month has been tough for the whole team and everyone has put in a lot of extra hours, so please be patient with us if we don’t respond to your emails and questions straight away.

iOS app

The iOS app has finally been approved by Apple and it’s called Almond by Securifi and you can download it here - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/almond-by-securifi/id908025757
At the moment the iOS app is fairly basic and apart from an option to reboot the Almond+, it doesn’t have any router specific features. We’ll be working on getting up to par in terms of functionality with the Android app, so expect regular updates.

EMS shipments

We’ve sent a lot of the EU Almond+’s via EMS and due to the sheer amount of products we’re shipping, the local postal service which handles EMS in Taiwan has been overwhelmed. This has lead to slow updates of the tracking information and delays of getting the packages out of Taiwan by up to a week. We’re sorry about this extra delay, it wasn’t something we expected, but judging by the tracking information, these packages are now slowly starting to make their way towards their intended destinations. If the tracking information hasn’t been updated, please just be patient, your pledge is on its way if we've sent you a tracking email, it's just held up waiting for processing before being shipped.

We’ve shipped, now what?

Just because the Almond+ has shipped doesn’t mean we've reached the end of the line, quite the contrary and we know we have a lot of work ahead of us. We expect to have a new firmware in about two weeks that will address a lot of the reported problems. We’re working with our chipset partners to try and resolve some of the more complex issues, with the software team working on both adding new features, making improvements to current features as well as fixing bugs. If all goes according to plan, the Android app should have sensor notifications in two to three weeks’ time. We’re sadly running a little bit behind schedule on the Automation side of things, so it might not be until early October until that’s ready now. We’d rather not launch something that’ll cause more frustration, as we know this is something many of you are looking forward to.

We also wanted to let you guys know that the Almond+ is already compatible with the GE Wink bulbs, so if you’re looking for some affordable light bulbs that you can control with your Almond+, give them a try. We’re also working on adding more comprehensive sensor support in general to the Almond+, but this is a pretty big task, so if we don’t support a specific sensor that you have, let us know in the forum and we’ll do our best to add it over time.

This month we’ll also open up the SDK to everyone, but please keep in mind that the SDK requires some C++ knowledge if you want to be able to take advantage of it. We will also be posting a few more code examples, something that’s been long overdue and we’re getting the software team to start interacting a bit more in the forums than they have been doing so far.

@mike - That's unfortunate, but sadly the $30 barely covered the shipping cost from Taiwan and the VAT is something you have to bring up with your government. The handling charge is something your local post charged for taking the package through customs and it's something you'll have to discuss with them.

Had to pay close to 40€ for my almond with sensors in the Netherlands.
Cost for customs handling: 17,50
And 22 somthing for VAT charges
Sounds reasonable considering the shipments labelled retail value.
Not to say I am happy to pay this amount. When I initially backed I expected the 30$ for shipment would cover these costs. But I also know this is hard to realise when shipping to consumers worldwide.

@Marvin - Please don't pay that for now, as we're following up with the local TNT office here to see why this is happening, as we weren't told of any charges to the Netherlands and that seems exceptionally high.

PS: As a design note, you should decouple the router functionality from the touch screen. what I meant was I was able to login into the web interface using the default access however after upgrading to the new R65 firmware, I cannot go in anymore. I need the password from the touch screen to go in. The use case for this one need a little more refinement. Drop me a message to discuss if you want.

I just want to give the folks @ Securifi my compliments in how they handled the situation for me. I received a notice that a delivery was made but I was not around to collected. So @ 0130H, when I reached home, I went to pick it up from those out of business hours collection center. Imagine my disappointment when I try to set it up at 0200, that the touchscreen did not work. I confirmed it a few days later when I call up the support. They were business like confirm information, ask me to check this and that, do this and that. They say they get back to me with the arrangement. However within a week of confirmation, I got a replacement. They sent an urgent package for me. Really appreciate it guys. I waited 1 year or more since the project was funded, getting a Lemon was bummer but the prompt service I get more than make up for it. Thanks Guys!!

@Jon - Sadly there's little we can do about this, but it all seems on the high side. That said, we just found out that TNT is sending out invoices for £30 to those in the UK that got their Almond+ via TNT, so you're still slightly better off.

@Dwayne - Apologies, it was meant to ship on Friday but our office printer gave up last minute when we were printing out the invoices. It'll be sent on Monday guaranteed, as it's already packed up and ready to go.

OK, I have been more than patient enough, can I get my Almonds & sensors now? Its now been more than 5 weeks since we started the "it will be shipped next week" line. While everybody else is enjoying their devices its only fair I participate in the same. Please tell me its already shipped ?

@Wayne - The US shipping is something we were bound by requirements from Kickstarter to do. The shipping to Singapore is surprisingly a lot more than you'd think, regardless of the distance. We're not a shipping/forwarding company and as we hadn't had issues until now, this was not something we expected.

Not trying to sound offensive or been a sourgrape here, but you will bound to customs bottleneck when you send via the local post office in one big lot. And paid USD30 for the shipping, ironically from Taiwan to Singapore, and the guys in US got free shipping.

@Wayne - We're well aware of the issue. EMS is a courier service operated by various post offices around the world and as silly as it sound now, EMS stands for Express Mail Service, but they've been anything but fast. The problem is that the local post office has been extremely slow in processing the packages and on top of that, the local customs is being even slower. We're really sorry about this, but there isn't much we can do to push customs to do things faster.

The packages has been stucked at TW post for 11days and its not moving at all..Why is Asia's shipment not using courier? Isn't it more cost effective since you are shipping out from Taiwan which is also in Asia?

@James - As previously stated in an update, shop.securifi.com isn't being updated. As with the last batch of EU units (Singapore is using the same frequency), a lot of them are stuck in customs as explained below. You should've been send a shipping email with a tracking number though, please check your spam folder and if you still can't find it, please let us know.

The EMS units are moving really slow through customs, but they are moving. Apparently the local customs office are limiting how many packages we can ship per day, which is just insane, but there's sadly nothing we can do about this.

@Jon - Sadly the local post office which handles EMS packages here has been very slow at getting them shipped and we can only apologise on their behalf. It's taken them about a week to process the packages and get them sent and today is a holiday in Taiwan, so nothing will happen until tomorrow.

UK backer here. I got my shipping notification on 28th August, but it's not arrived yet. If I go to the tracking page I only see an entry for "Acceptance", which is Aug/31/2014 10:31. All other fields on the page are blank. Is this expected?